Unesco to grant 2 villages ‘tsunami-ready’ tag today
A tsunami mock drill at a seaside village in Ganjam district
BHUBANESWAR: The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of the Unesco will on Friday recognise the state for successful implementation of the ‘Tsunami Ready’ programme in two villages — Venkatraipur in Ganjam and Noliasahi in Jagatsinghpur district.
With this recognition, India will become the first country to implement the ‘Tsunami Ready’ programme in the Indian Ocean Region. Odisha will be the first Indian state to do so.
The ‘Tsunami Ready’ programme is a community-based programme initiated by the Unesco-IOC to promote tsunami preparedness through active collaboration of public, community, national and local emergency management agencies.
The primary objective of the ‘tsunami ready’ programme is to improve the coastal communities’ preparedness for tsunami emergencies, to minimize the loss of life and property and to ensure a structural and systematic approach in building community preparedness.
Sources said Unesco-IOC would confer Certificate of Recognition and Certificate of Appreciation on the two villages in a virtual event on Friday.
The event will be jointly organised by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and Indian Ocean Tsunami Information Centre (IOTIC) of Unesco-IOC.
The recognition will be given by M Rajeevan, secretary, ministry of earth sciences (MoES), and GVV Sarma, member secretary, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), who will be attending the event as chief guest and guest of honour, respectively.
Officials said the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre (ITEWC) of the INCOIS is the nodal agency to provide tsunami advisories in the country. INCOIS also provides tsunami advisories to the Indian Ocean region (nearly 25 countries) as a Tsunami Service Provider. It also organises Tsunami Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) workshops, training sessions and seminars for state and district-level disaster management officials of the coastal states.